


Phototrophic

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [19]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:49:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Home sweet home, huh?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> Written after the Tris/Daja series. Writing this megaseries (I write a ship story for them all and more, fear not), I truly fell deeper in love with all of them.

Briar returned to the Cheeseman Street House from Irod with a cart of herbs and flowering trees. Sandry, Daja and Tris barely saw him enter the house for a while after, with all his effort into planting or travelling about the area with the plants for sales and gifts.

            The three went with him once he explained that his next stop was Winding Circle, with gifts for Rosethorn. Sandry and Daja wished to see their old teachers; Tris didn’t want to be left behind, and liked the idea of seeing Discipline with her foster-siblings again. It had been too long since she had seen her foster-mothers, too.

            Surprisingly enough, Shriek was the first to greet her at Discipline—or so she had to guess, when one unit of a starling flock dove down at her with a shriek she could recognise in her sleep.

            “Dratted bird,” came Rosethorn’s slurred-but-still-sharp voice. “Tris, you’ve gone and lengthened his life. Keeps coming and begging for food…going to out-live the lot of them, and me, by the looks of it.”

            Lark shot the woman a look and flicked at her ear gently, smiling with only a hint of remorse. “Welcome home, everyone.”

            “Just a visit,” Tris clarified, fending off Shriek.

            “But still home nonetheless, I would hope, with Cheeseman House.” Lark embraced each of her foster-children in turn. She took a large bag from Briar. “Let me help you.”

            “Lark, if you trigger your wheezes, I’ll have your throat myself.”

            “Yes Rosie.” Lark winked at Briar, who grinned.

            Briar jabbed Tris with an elbow, but soothed away her frown with another charming smile. “Home sweet home, huh?”

            “I suppose.”

            But Briar could hear the real answer, as he always could: Yes, absolutely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briar worked in the gardens of Discipline, lugging flowering trees around under Rosethorn’s instruction.

Briar worked in the gardens of Discipline, lugging flowering trees around under Rosethorn’s instruction. She sat on a bench outside her workshop, Lark lap-looming beside her. Tris only noticed them in her peripheral; Briar was lifting the root-bagged trees topless, sweat sheening the skin pulled taught over his working muscles.

            Sandry stood beside her, a cup of sweet tea in her hands. She caught Tris’ line of sight and giggled. “So, you and Daja…?”

            Tris coloured. “None of your beeswax!”

            “Touchy!” Sandry’s smile only grew. “True, then.”

            Tris bit her lip and watched Briar.

            “Have you found emotions to be labile?” Tris questioned at last, tearing her gaze from Briar. “You tend to understand them more.”

            “I’ve found emotions—feelings especially—to be _incredibly_ labile,” Sandry confirmed, offering her cup. Tris sipped from it and returned it. “Daja too, fret not. And, well, you know Briar…”

            Tris laughed. They all knew Briar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s a charmer, our Briar,” Sandry murmured, her smile full of secrets.

Tris tugged a thread of wind from her plaits and sent it circling around Briar, who was working topless in Discipline’s garden under Rosethorn’s watchful eye. Just to be kind, Tris sent a breeze to Rosethorn and Lark on the garden bench, as well.

            “Thanks Tris,” she heard Rosethorn call, followed by a gentler, “Thank you, Tris,” from Lark.

            Briar looked up with appreciation clear in his eyes. Tris couldn’t help smiling at the wrinkles that formed on his sun-kissed skin as he squinted through the sunlight to see her. “Cheers, Tris!”

            “He’s a charmer, our Briar,” Sandry murmured, her smile full of secrets. Tris hated when her foster-sibling got like that; she narrowed her eyes and gazed at Sandry over her shoulder. Sandry turned to meet the gaze. “What?”

            “You’re hiding something.”

            “She’s always hiding something,” Daja remarked as she stepped out into the garden, broad-rimmed hat in hand. She brought the hat to Rosethorn and grinned down at the woman. “Don’t tell me we don’t spoil you.”

            Rosethorn glared up suspiciously but took the hat. There was enough gratitude in the hint of a grin for Daja, anyway—and much more in Lark’s easy-going smile. Daja walked back to Tris and Sandry, slinging an arm over each of their shorter shoulders.

            “Sandry’s outré smile, I think, is about this lad here,” Daja commented, nudging in Briar’s direction with her chin. “He’s a looker, isn’t he?”

            “Coming from a _nisamohi_ , that must be something,” Sandry answered, her odd smile jumping into her eyes. “Wouldn’t you say, Tris?”

            Tris hated feeling baited. “I might.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you all going to watch me work, or come help?”

“Are you all going to watch me work, or come help?” Briar hollered from the garden of Discipline, beckoning the girls over with a hand gesture. “You’ve all taught me ladies can work just as well as fellas…”

            “I would hope I helped there!” Rosethorn called back from her garden bench, lobbing a pebble in his direction. He caught it and grinned over at his teacher.

            Tris, Daja and Sandry laughed and wandered over. Briar set them to varied tasks: Sandry to weeding, Tris to watering and Daja to the lifting and planting with him. Tris watched them set a few plants by the wall.

            “Will they get light there?” she inquired, accidentally dripping water down Sandry’s back; Sandry squealed. Tris stopped watering.

            Briar shook his head. “Some plants would etiolate, you’re right. But these plants are especially known for growing toward light, so when they’re fully grown it’ll look like a cascade of plants across the landscape.”

            “Plants can grow toward light?” Sandry plucked at her top, dragging it away from her skin where it was wet. Tris captured some breeze and sent it up Sandry’s shirt to help dry her skin and the cloth. “Thanks Tris. The water felt good anyway. Get Daja.”

            “Plants can certainly grow toward light,” Briar confirmed, laughing to see Tris direct some water from her bucket toward Daja. It formed a water ball—like a bubble, without air—and followed the woman around as she hopped about the garden and ran from it. At last she turned and trounced the poor water bubble with a swing of her staff, sending large water droplets across her family—and herself.

            “Wet!” Tris screeched. Sandry, Briar and Daja laughed. “Yes, go on, all of you. I think I’d be a desert plant—I’d go growing away from water.”

            “ _That’s_ a silly thing to do.” Rosethorn stepped up to them and knelt down to assist with the weeding.

            Lark sat beside her, smiling up to her foster children. “We still have hours yet until our younger charges are returned to us. It’s nice to have you all back.”

            Tris thought that she had grown toward Discipline as plants apparently grew toward light. Even—or especially—after she dropped some water on Rosethorn and Lark (to join the group properly) and was threatened with spending the rest of her short life hanging in the well.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Briar, you don’t love all the girls you walk with, do you?”

When the Circle mages visited Discipline for the day and enjoyed their visit too much to leave, Rosethorn and Lark—perhaps more the latter—suggested they stay over and sleep in the workrooms. The bedrooms were taken by their new charges, but their workrooms had housed sleepers before.

            Sandry claimed Daja for Lark’s room, uttering something about ‘not enough time with my _saati_ ’, but Tris thought she had glimpsed one of Sandry’s secretive and _mischievous_ smiles again. Briar seemed excited enough to spend the night with Tris in Rosethorn’s workroom, anyway.

            He was back in a tunic as he unfurled two pallets side-by-side and spread one sheet over them, tucking the corners under. Tris wondered when he had learned to properly make a bed.

            “They’ll probably talk about all sorts of _girly_ things anyway, eh Tris?” he posited, grinning over his shoulder. “Who wants to be bored by that?”

            Tris laughed and changed into her nightdress, uncaring of Briar’s eyes at this point in her life—especially after her time spent with Daja a week ago. She slipped beneath one of the sheets; it was too hot for blankets by this time of year.

            “Briar, you don’t love all the girls you walk with, do you?”

            Briar frowned. He didn’t often speak of his love-life (or bed-life) with his family. He flopped down onto the pallet next to Tris. “No, I don’t love most of them—but I like them.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is it better when you love the girls, Briar?”

“Is it better when you love the girls, Briar?” Tris shifted to look at him on the sleeping-pallet bed they were sharing in Rosethorn’s workroom during their visit.

            “Depends what you mean by better.” Briar removed his shirt—gripping it from the back and pulling it over his head, the way Tris loved but couldn’t do with dresses—and laughed. “There seem to be two things with relationships, all-physical or not: emotions and touch. Love tends to mean the emotional side gets met. Like can often mean touch. But they can get all tied up together, too. Sometimes I like simple.” He turned and grinned at his friend. “You and Daja—what was that?”

            Tris reddened and angled her face into her pillow for a moment. Her voice was muffled. “You heard.”

            “I felt, a little. And heard. I wouldn’t say any of us ‘cept maybe Daj’ were any good at subtlety.”

            The two heard sound from Lark’s workroom across the kitchen: giggling from Sandry, laughter from Daja. Tris and Briar could feel the delight through their connections. It made the house feel light and lovely.

            “Simplicity,” Tris repeated. She lay on her back, gazing at the wooden ceiling of Rosethorn’s workroom. “Daja and I are not simplicity. See, I already have love—love for _all_ of you. And adding the touch just seemed natural. I thought I…well, I don’t think my feelings for Daja were that ephemeral, or I would hope I’m not _that_ sort of girl.”

            Briar’s eyebrow rose. “What do you mean?”

            “I love Daja. I love you and Sandry. I like touch, I’ve realised. I’m all mixed up. It’s just not…not _simple_ , the way you like.”

            Briar laughed. “As soon as I realised I had three girls in my head and two mothers, I knew my life wouldn’t be _simple_. So I look for some simplicity where I can—doesn’t mean that’s all I’m looking for.”

            Tris looked to him and couldn’t hide the hope in her eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t have any of those books for adults, do you? Erotic books?”

Briar knit his fingers behind his head and reclined back against the pallet he and Tris shared in Rosethorn’s workroom.

            “We could experiment.” He sent a grin along to Tris. “I know you Lightsbridge gals like to experiment. Who knows, maybe Sandry and Daja are doing that just now.”

            Tris didn’t know which idea made her colour more. She hoped that with enough of this love-and-touch game (or like-and-touch) she would cease to be such a blushing maiden.

            “I’m…not opposed to experimenting.”

            Briar chuckled. He stopped suddenly. “You don’t have any of those books for adults, do you? Erotic books?”

            Tris thwacked his shoulder but couldn’t help laughing. “Maybe. It’s possible. Yes.”

            “Do you have one with you?”

            Her eyes widened. “What do I look like? No, I’m not the sort of person who carries those around.”

            Briar stood up, fluid and fast; Tris saw some of Daja in the action. He turned, his eyes amused in the candlelight. “I’ll be back real quick.”

            He was, too, returning with a book in hand. He flopped down next to Tris and opened it to the first few pages.

            “Is this…?”

            He nodded. “When you were teaching me to read I started exploring some of the books hidden away in the attic. This one had an innocent title so I opened it up but recognised some words that didn’t fit the title. I thought it might fit our experimentation instead.”

            Tris wasn’t quite sure what expression her features formed, or whether to laugh or plop the book on his head.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tris laughed and gripped his hair, amazed at how something could be so serious and jovial at once.

“Are you going to read it?” Tris inquired, pointing at the book Briar had snatched from Discipline’s attic storage area. Briar held the book out to her and, try as she might, she couldn’t help taking it.

            “I think you should. Like old times, when you were teaching me to read.”

            “I wasn’t teaching you to read with _sex_ ,” Tris pointed out, eyebrows high. Briar laughed. “You probably would have learned faster that way.”

            “That’s the spirit,” Briar agreed, grinning. “I’ll make it worth your while. Promise.”

            Tris shrugged and opened the book again. This one seemed to jump straight to the steamy bits, as a set of short stories and poetry. She read through the first page without interruption. On the second page, Briar made some comments that made her laugh; she grew more comfortable with each one, until she read the occasional line with her sultriest of voices.

            After a few pages, Briar sidled up next to her on their shared sleeping-pallet bed. His fingers inched up her calf, which made her voice jump. It grew breathy when he kissed her temple, nosed down her hair and neck and kissed the skin above her clavicle.

            He read a few lines, then. His reading voice was so strong and mature—compared to the young boy she had taught to read—that Tris knew she could read no longer. She dropped the book, flipped him over and straddled him.

            Tris gazed down, frozen and suddenly a little confused. She hadn’t been _here_ before. “I—uh. Not sure what, erm, came over me.”

            “I ain’t complaining, lovely,” Briar drawled with the hint of his old dialect. He pulled himself up—Tris moaned at the feel of his abdominal muscles working so effortlessly—and kissed her, hard and tenacious then soft and feathery.

            “You’re good at this,” she said before her mind—so dizzy!—could catch up.

            “I’d hope so, with all the practicing I’ve done for you.”

            Tris laughed and gripped his hair, amazed at how something could be so serious and jovial at once. But then, that was Briar for you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t think they’ll have felt that, do you?”

Being with Briar was different from being with Daja. It wasn’t a matter of hard or soft: Tris thought that oversimplified, provided an obnoxious quiddity or was outright wrong. Briar was just as capable of softness as Daja of hardness.

            Briar, knowing it was Tris’ first time with a man, was exceedingly gentle. Tris thought she could tell that he had intently _learned_ from many of the woman he’d been with, based on his desire and ability to pleasure a partner. He made so little of it about himself that Tris had to strive to provide the same to him, through the haze of her pleasured thoughts.

            He held her tight when at last exhaustion struck her—she had the distinct feeling that Briar’s stamina was longer—and made her feel important, special, more than a one-night deal. She wondered if all those he walked with felt this way.

            “You don’t think they’ll have felt that, do you?” she whispered into the dark. Her power had grasped out in pleasure and blown out the candle, though she had the control to prevent any of Rosethorn’s workshop belongings from being tampered with.

            “Sandry and Daja? Not much. I shut my connection, did you?”

            “Yes.” Tris paused. “So we’re safe?”

            Briar laughed. “Well, Rosethorn will know.”

            Tris gasped. “ _How?_ ”

            “This is her workshop. She knows everything that goes on in her workshop. But this isn’t the first time it’s seen some steam…”

            “What? Who did you…?”       

            “ _Me?_ ” Briar bit back a bark of laughter and shook his head. “ _She_ is perfectly capable of breaking in a space. Lark, Crane, Henna, a number of others along the line… Oh, stop gaping. We’re not saints, any of us. Now not even you.”

            Tris bit his grin. “I was _never_ a saint.”

            “Patron saint of sarcasm.” Briar knit his fingers with Tris’. “Can you play a little lightning show? That always used to let me sleep.”

            Tris smiled and allowed lightning to play over her body, little fingers of light sparks that lasted surprisingly long. When Briar moved toward it, she allowed the lightning to play over both of their bodies. She smiled when she saw Briar’s own tender smile.

            Plants growing to light, then, even odd light. Yes, she could see that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C: I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
